Chapter II: Part 2

Cabinet pudding, if a "left-over," should perhaps be called "reconstruction pudding." Here again the amount of egg and sugar used must vary in a direct ratio with the size of the family appetite. Prepared to suit that of the family of the late Dr. TANNER, such a dinner as the above is not merely inexpensive, it costs nothing at all.

* * * * *

"All mules attached to the American Army in France have little
khaki bags containing gas masks fastened to the collars of their
harness. In the event of a gas attack these are slipped over their
pleading noses."--_Daily Paper_.

This, we understand, is not what the drivers call them.

* * * * *

_LÈSE-MAJESTÉ._

Our triumphal march into Germany having been arrested just west of the Meuse, Sir DOUGLAS HAIG (through the usual channels) gave me ten days' leave to visit the historic town of St. Omer. As I only asked for seven-days and he gave me ten I knew there was a catch somewhere. It appeared that the ten days was worked out on the idea that it would take me five days to get there and five to get back. Needless to say I ignored trains, which are a snare and delusion in these days. I lorry-hopped. Most people would think many times before lorry-hopping from Charleroi to Lille _viâ_ Brussels and Tournai, but there is nothing that a man with a leave warrant in his pocket will not do--except perhaps save money.

It was during this leave that I barged right into GEORGE, "George" being our very own King, besides being Emperor of India.

To bridge the apparent gap between my arrival and the perturbing catastrophe referred to, it is only necessary to add that if you enter from the main route from Hazebrouck you will find just off the road a convoy of some sixty dear things seeing as much life as can be beheld while groping into the insides of the Red Cross motor ambulance which it is their job to feed, wash, coax and drive.

I have the _entrée_ here (except when the relentless Miss Commanding Officer chases me out for breaking the two-and-a-half rules which govern the place), and when I admitted incautiously that the only place on the Front that I had not seen or been frightened at was Passchendaele, they smiled pityingly and promised to take me there on Sunday for a joy ride. Shades of 1917! What whirligigs of circumstance time and the armistice have brought us! It was in the joy ride we nearly upset a dynasty.

To accomplish the journey in greater comfort, Vee and her hut companion Sadie got hold of a perfectly good Colonel man who had a perfectly good car and had, moreover, a perfectly good excuse to go to Passchendaele (he was really going to Boulogne), but wanted to get a good flying start, and we set off. We were a perfectly organised unit, consisting of four sections (including two No. 2 Brownie Sections), A.S.C. complement (one lunch basket), Aid Post (bandage and thermometer, carried as a matter of course by Sadie, who thinks of these things), a Scotch dog (mascot) and a flask of similar nationality (medical comforts for the troops).

On our arrival at Ypres the traffic man held up his hand. That in itself would not have been important, for we have it on great authority that the blind eye may be employed on really special occasions, but the fellow stood determinedly in the middle of the road, and even traffic men, we have always insisted, should not be run over except on great provocation.

"All traffic stopped between 12 and 2," he said; "the KING is passing by."

We looked blankly at one another. I have an extraordinary respect for HIS MAJESTY, but I did wish that he did more of his work by aeroplane at times.

We ate sandwiches, selected and sited positions for sniping the royal progress with our No. 2 Brownies and photographed everything we saw, including an American cooker, the historic "Goldfish Chateau," and a Belgian leading a little pig, with the inscription, "The only good Bosch in the country"; but on the whole Ypres on a Sunday afternoon is hardly more exciting than the "great commercial centre" of Scotland.

At intervals the Staff dashed up and spoke a word or two to the traffic man, but they departed again and nothing happened. We _all_ had a turn at that traffic man, and what we don't know about his home life, pre-war and probable post-war troubles, isn't worth putting on any demobilisation paper. And each time we tackled him we got a different idea of the KING'S movements--HIS MAJESTY must have had an extraordinarily complex journey that day.

Suddenly we were free! The KING was going to lunch near the Cloth Hall and would not be by till 2.30 P.M. Knowing that _any_ order emanating from a Staff is liable to instant cancellation we rushed back to the car and told the driver to "Go!" with the "G" hard, as in shell fire. Whether we went round or over the traffic man I don't know, but we slid with terrific speed into Ypres. Traffic was a little congested round the ruined cathedral, and we barged right up against a panting Ford, which had one lung completely gone and the other seemingly a little porous. A stream of traffic was coming down our side of the road; no matter, we must get on. Urged on by our advice the driver pulled out from behind the dying Ford and tried to pass. It was fearfully exciting. Some Staff on the bank began to wave to us. Thinking perhaps they knew some of us, or thought the girls looked nice, I smiled and nodded back. More Staff waved more arms. We were awfully pleased with our reception. Still three abreast on the road, the Ford having flickered up before death, we reached the crossroads as a large car with a flag on it came round the corner. The car stopped dead. So did we. The two cars glared at each other. The Ford writhed forward hideously in its death agony. I thought I felt funny, and when Vee whispered something about "the Royal Standard" I knew why. Royal Standard? Good Lord! I had visions of three laboriously acquired pips being torn from my sleeves by outraged authorities. The air was rent by my wild yell to our driver to go on--_go on_ and carry the Ford with us on our bonnet if necessary.

What happened next is not very clear in my memory. I have a hazy picture of purple A.P.M.'s, of our GEORGE sitting calmly in a Rolls Royce, of irrepressible woman poking a No. 2 Brownie against the window of our car and trying to find a perfectly good king in a small viewfinder; of the Colonel on my right saluting, with a fearful waggle of the hand, without his hat on, that article having been simply swept off by my own tremendous "circular-motion-thumb-close-to-the-forefinger-touching-the-peak-of-the-cap, etc., etc." Through the haze I saw HIS MAJESTY graciously return our salute and I seem to recollect Vee taking his salute as a personal compliment to the feminine element in the car, and smiling back delightedly in return.

The next thing I remember was that the car had passed, the traffic man was gazing reproachfully at us, the Ford had expired and our chauffeur had stopped his engine. I don't know what Sadie did all this time, but since, from her position, she must have seen the whole thing in better perspective, I don't wonder the girl looked white.

Returning to consciousness I heard Vee utter a tremendous sigh of intense satisfaction.

"I _sniped_ him," she said, and cuddled the No. 2 Brownie affectionately.

"Did you turn it round after the last one?" I asked suddenly.

"No, didn't you?"

And of course we hadn't. And there, in the undeveloped spool lies HIS MAJESTY superimposed on the back of the Bosch piglet we had photographed outside Ypres. Isn't that just the hardest of luck?

I'm going to ask if I can develop the film without running the risk of losing my commission. After all it's not so very inappropriate, is it?

L.

* * * * *

"Extensive floods are reported in the Home Counties. Mr. Noah ----
had a narrow escape from drowning at ---- on Saturday."--_Scotch
Paper_.

And yet people say, "What's in a name?"

* * * * *

_Nurse_. "WHICH BABY HAVE YOU COME FOR?"

_Little Girl_. "THANK YOU, NURSE--I'M BEING SERVED."]

* * * * *

TO A V.A.D. HALL-PORTERESS.

(_WITH APOLOGIES TO R.K._)

If you can keep your courage and your curls up
When life a whirling chaos seems to be
Of amorous swains who want to ring their girls up
And get them through at once (as you for me);
If you can calm the weary and the waxy,
When no appeals, however nicely put,
Can lure from rank or pub. the ticking taxi,
And they, poor devils, have to go on foot;

If you can stem the rush of second-cousins,
Who crowd to get a glimpse of darling Fred,
When Father, Mother, Aunts and friends in dozens
Already form a circle round his bed;
If, in a word, you run a show amazing,
With precious little help to see you through it,
Yours is a temper far above all praising,
And--here we reach the point--I've seen you do it.

* * * * *

"Annie ---- was fined £2 for failing to have the name attached
to apples at a stall in ---- Market. Mr. ---- said the public
were being wilfully kept in ignorance as to what they were
buying."--_Provincial Paper_.

We think the Magistrate was rather pernickety. Most people know an apple when they see one, but the trouble in these days is to see one at all.

* * * * *

THE RULE OF THE ROAD.

I admire all poilus, and especially did I admire Pierre. Once only did I find him at fault. It was one of my functions on a hospital ship plying between ---- and ---- to wheel about the more fortunate of the patients. On the occasion on which I met Pierre he was journeying to his mother in London and was temporarily engaged in the same pursuit. I beheld him approaching with his charge and immediately ported my helm. He bore down on his, keeping to his right, and we collided.

"Keep to your left, you fool!" I cried as the crash came.

"_Mais non! le droit, M'sieur._"

Here was a deadlock indeed. It was an English ship, therefore the English rule of the road should be maintained. On the other hand, the fact that we were still in French waters was in his favour. But my stubborn British will would not give way, and Heaven knows how long we should have remained there had not one of the invalids grunted, "Caan't thee keep t' the rule o' the waater?" and I saw a dignified way out of the difficulty. I withdrew to the right, and we passed on with no animosity towards one another. Still, it was a near thing for the Entente.

* * * * *

"The unfortunate lady was examining an unloaded pistol when it
went off and caused instantaneous death."--_Times of Ceylon_.

In the circumstances we trust we are justified in thinking this tragic intelligence to be the result of a false report.

* * * * *

THE NEW GAME.

If Hubbard were not my friend I should describe him as one of the most amiable and most muddle-headed of mankind. Under the influence of his mind things that are quite clear become confused and lose themselves in long vistas of statement and sub-statement and sub-sub-statement, and a plain tale is darkened until at the end nothing is left of what it originally was. If you don't believe me listen to what follows.

We were sitting in the drawing-room one evening recently; the various topics of the day having been more or less exhausted, somebody proposed a round game as a diversion. Hubbard saw his chance and dashed in. "Yes, by Jove," he said, "let's have the new game of 'Likenesses;' it's a perfectly ripping game. I played it the other day and never laughed so much in my life."

"How do you play it?" I said.

"Oh," said Hubbard, "it's one of the easiest games in the world. All you have to do is to keep your mind clear and remember what you are driving at."

"Right," I said. "But what are you driving at?"

"Well," said Hubbard, "one of us goes out or stops his ears and the rest choose somebody."

"There's nothing very new about that," I said; "I've played it a thousand times."

"Wait a bit," said Hubbard, "and don't be so ready to plunge. I tell you this is an entirely new and original game."

"Let him," said somebody else, "get on with it in his own way or we shall be here till past midnight. Go ahead, Hubbard."

"Well," said Hubbard, "you choose somebody to be a likeness. When your man comes in again he begins to ask questions."

"Vegetable, animal or mineral," said Butterfield, "I knew it was."

"No, it isn't," said Hubbard. "The man who has gone out and has come in says to you, What food does the person you've chosen remind you of? and you say tapioca pudding or beef-steak and kidney pie."

"But," I said, "there's nobody in the whole wide world who reminds me of either of those things."

"Well, you can choose your own food," said Hubbard. "If you don't like tapioca pudding you can answer scrambled eggs. Only scrambled eggs must remind you of the person you have in your mind. Then you go on to the next man, and you ask him what cloth he reminds you of, and he answers tweed or Irish frieze or best Angola."

"Can anybody," said Butterfield, "tell me what 'best Angola' means? I've seen it often in my tailor's bills; mostly, I think, as waistcoats, but I've never known what it really is. If I had to guess now I should say it is something composed in equal parts of fancy waistcoats, tapioca pudding and scrambled eggs."

"Well, you'd be wrong," said Hubbard; "it's nothing of the sort. When you have got as far as scrambled eggs your man ought to begin to have a faint glimmering--"

"But," I said, "there's the tapioca pudding. What are you going to do with that? You can't be allowed to play fast and loose with that."

"Don't you see," said Hubbard, "that that's a mere example and now done with? Do please remember that we have got on to Irish frieze. You must allow me to explain the game in my own way. Now your man tackles the next person in turn. What building, he asks, does he remind you of? and the answer is Cologne Cathedral or the Bank of England."

"It would be difficult to choose anyone who reminded me of either of those celebrated structures," I said, "but I'll take the Bank of England for choice."

"But," said Hubbard, "you don't _take_ either of them, you see it in a flash and it's gone."

"What do you see in a flash?" I said.

"The building that the man who has gone out and is asking questions in order to guess the person everybody is thinking of reminds you of," said Hubbard.

"Oh, yes. That makes it absolutely clear," said Butterfield. "Let's get to work. Personally I haven't got beyond scrambled eggs."

"And I am lost in tapioca," I said. "Let's get to bed." That's as far as Hubbard ever got with the explanation of his game. We left him struggling and went to bed.

* * * * *

THE TRUTHFUL TRAVELLER.

All my life I've been a rover; I have ranged the wide world over,
And I've had the very devil of a time;
I've philandered through Alsatia with the nautch-girl and the geisha;
I have heard the bells of San Marino chime.

I've hobnobbed in Honolulu with the Zouave and the Zulu,
I have fought against the Turks at Spion Kop;
In a spirit of bravado I've accosted the MIKADO
And familiarly addressed him as "Old Top."

I've been captured by banditti, kissed a squaw in Salt Lake City,
Carved my name upon the tomb of LI HUNG CHANG,
And been overcome by toddy where the turbid Irrawaddy
Winds its way from Cincinnati to Penang.

I have crossed the far-famed ferry from Port Said to Pondicherry;
In a droschky shot the rapids at Hongkong;
I have pounded to a jelly dancing dervishes at Delhi,
And I've chased the chimpanzee at Chittagong.

I've smoked baksheesh in pagodas, stood a Dago Scotch-and-sodas,
Scaled the mighty Mississippi's snow-clad peaks,
Galloped madly on a llama through lagoons at Yokohama
And found rubies at Magillicuddy's Reeks.

Where the Tagus joins the Hooghly I have bowled the wily googly,
I have heard the howdah's howl at Hyderabad;
On a rickshaw I've gone sailing, with my boomerang impaling
Hooded cobras on the ice-floes off Bagdad.

I have slain the beri-beri with a ball from my knobkerry;
I have climbed the Pole and leapt across the Line;
I've seen seals in Abyssinia and volcanoes in Virginia,
And I've dived into the shark-infested Rhine.

From the pemmican's fierce claws and the tiffin's gaping jaws
I have never shrunk in abject terror yet;
In the jungle I have tracked them and attacked them and then hacked them
Into mincemeat with my trusty calumet.

I have interviewed the MULLAH, KRUGER, MENELIK, ABDULLAH,
LOBENGULA, SITTING BULL and Clan-na-Gael;
When I think of where I've been, what I've done and what I've seen,
I'm surprised that I'm alive to tell the tale.

* * * * *

_Seated ditto_. "MY HUSBAND WOULD HAVE BEEN A GENERAL IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR THE WAR."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_).

Battle-books have already come to wear (even in so short a time) a strangely archaic aspect. But _Through the Hindenburg Line_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is, as its name tells you, nearer to date than most. The writer, Mr. F.A. MCKENZIE, was a Canadian war correspondent whom the Canadian Staff, believing (as he himself says) "that the right place for a war correspondent is where he can see what he is supposed to describe," allowed to live among the troops in the front line. As a result of this unusual privilege, his pictures of the great fights in the last stages of the War have the reality of personal experience. The actual smashing of the Line, for example, is an epic of heroism and achievement still hardly realised by people at home, who cling to an idea that the final victories were gained over an enemy enfeebled and at disadvantage. There are other chapters in the record that may perhaps hardly be welcomed at this moment by those amiable sentimentalists who would have us treat the enemy as a Bosch and a brother. The hospital raid at Etaples is one of them; when, even after the light of the burning huts had made ignorance impossible, the gentle Hun, swooping low, swept with machine-gun fire the nurses and doctors who were attempting to remove the wounded. That, I think, is a memory that will linger. Another picture, queerly disproportionate in the anger it excites, is that of the fruit garden in a great country house, with its wealth of famous old peach and pear trees still in place along the walls, but every one methodically sawn through. By comparison a trifling crime, but somehow I may forget other things more easily. One would welcome the revised judgment of Dr. SOLF upon this particular expression of the German spirit.

* * * * *

To those who have been persuaded by writers like Mr. H.G. WELLS that the horse has not and ought not to have any part in modern warfare, Captain SIDNEY GALTREY'S _The Horse and the War_ ("COUNTRY LIFE") will come as a revelation. Mr. WELLS has said that the sight of a soldier wearing spurs makes him sick, or words to that effect; yet so neglectful were our military authorities of Mr. WELLS'S opinions and teaching that they went on steadily adding horses, many of them cavalry horses, to the Army. We began the War with twenty-five thousand horses, and we finished it with considerably more than a million, to say nothing of the mules, who diffused an air of cynical amusement over the military proceedings in which they were compelled to bear a part. This may conceivably be one more proof in Mr. WELLS'S eyes of our incurable stupidity. But those who have watched the work of our armies at close quarters will be the last to agree with him. Captain GALTREY in fact proves his case. He has an enthusiasm for horses and has written a most interesting book. The illustrations are excellent and appropriate, and the book is admirably got up.

* * * * *

Valour is apt to get the better of discretion in any novel that attempts to be quite up to date with a political subject. Mrs. TWEEDALE places _The Veiled Woman_ (JENKINS) in some vague period later than August, 1914, largely in order to decry a Government that really by now one fails to identify, and to let off sundry feminist squibs and crackers which, in view of the present position of woman suffrage, can only be described as fireworks half-price on the 6th of November. Further, to get all my grumbles frankly over, she so constantly makes sweeping assertions against the other sex that even the most chivalrous of male reviewers may be inclined to kick. To hear a lady pronounce once or twice that the males of the species are obviously diminishing in stature and strength, or that the whole programme of the earth's return to the highest ideals is in woman's hands, may be good for the masculine soul, but after a while it brings up vividly BESANT'S story of _The Revolt of Man_--what happened then and just why. The claim to a monopoly of self-sacrifice in particular comes very badly in war-time. All the same, if you cut out this top-hamper the story of _The Veiled Woman_ on its personal side is distinctly a good one. I wished the heroine had not spoiled her fine enthusiasms by mixing them so freely with a personal vendetta; but after all it is not the characterisation that intrigues one here. The plot--which I will not spoil by giving it away--goes excellently, and works up to a capital climax.

* * * * *

Mr. BOYD CABLE is the literary liaison officer between the Infantry and the Air Force. In the wonderful stories contained in _Airmen O' War_ (MURRAY) his object is to make the armies on the ground understand what they owe to the armies of the air. If they suffer from a lack of understanding, this is not, I gather, likely to be removed by the airmen themselves, for they have evidently imbibed some of the spirit of our Navy and are magnificently reluctant to talk about their achievements. But this reticence has its dangers, and Mr. BOYD CABLE has set to work to remove them. Here he has written nothing for which he cannot find "an actual parallel fact." I honestly believe him and commend his book both to those who have a passion for tales of high adventure and also to those--if there are such--who need authentic instances of what our Airmen O' War have done for us.

* * * * *

The best I can honestly say of _Tony Heron_ (COLLINS) is that it has all the makings of a good novel, but unfortunately stops there, unmade or rather unvitalized. It is the tale of a boy's upbringing by a sternly antagonistic father, of his growth to maturity, his love affairs, and in due course his relations with his own son. All the events happen that are proper to a scheme of this type; but somehow, despite the fact that Mr. C. KENNETT BURROW wields a practised and often picturesque pen, the whole affair remains a literary exercise and declines to come alive. Perhaps in justice I should except two characters, _Roland_, the sturdy-son born out of wedlock to _Tony_, and _Phil_, weakling child of old _Heron_ by a second marriage. Both these and the relation of the pair to each other furnish a pleasant contrast to the anæmia which seems to affect the rest of the tale. Stay, there is yet another, _Kenrick_, the private tutor of _Tony_, whose treatment by the author is at least vigorous. I found him just a little surprising. A creature, we are told, over fond of good food and wine, who, dining with his pupil on the latter's sixteenth birthday and attempting convivial airs, is shown his place with a promptitude recalling the best manner of the eighteenth century. Subsequently, one gathers, he took to chronic alcoholism, combined with amateur blackmail; and a final appearance shows the fellow dribbling wine over the evening shirt, to whose wear the author is at pains to tell us he was unused. Clearly a low race, these tutors, about whom I seem hitherto to have been strangely misinformed.

* * * * *

Captain ROBERT B. ROSS has made excellent business of _The Fifty-First in France_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). In any case there could be no doubts about the merits of this famous Scottish territorial division; it is one of the very many British divisions which has proved itself the best of all. I recall its first appearance at the Front as a constituted unit, and can speak to it that the impression its arrival caused was welcome and comforting. But our author is not only a soldier; he has also the literary art. Clearly he appreciates that a fine subject is not all that is wanted to make a good book; that one needs, for instance, the gift of observation, the power of conveying an impression, and a reserve of humour always ready at need. All these are his in abundance. His book treats of two earlier periods of the war; the second, the long-drawn offensive of the Somme, will make the most intimate appeal to men of his own and the other divisions involved. To those who knew the affair at first hand the story will recall much that they saw and felt themselves; often they will recognise a map-reading or will come across the name of a humble billet which they too regarded as a paradise replete with every modern comfort. Upon those who now learn it for the first time a deep and enduring impression will be produced. Captain Ross writes always with a due respect for the serious nature of his subject; but there are times when he breaks away from his military and literary discipline. There is for example, a moment when he dines well, "no more wisely than was desirable, no less wisely than was excusable." It must be added that the accompanying sketches are, if not of an ambitious order, yet of a certain merit. At any rate they assist.

* * * * *

* * * * *

SMITH MINOR AGAIN.

"_Cæsar autem erat imperator sui generis._" "Now the Kaiser was a general of the pig tribe."

* * * * *

THE SILENT SERVICE.

"As the President's steamer came alongside the officer shouted
an inaudible order down a tube. There was a snap and a crash. A
button was pressed, and, presto!"--_Daily Paper_.